Queen Sophia The Homophobe

It seems that the Queen’s biography is a real case of loose lips sink ships. Queen Sophia who has been known for her discretion, and compassion has dropped the mask to share with the world her contempt for gay people.

“I can understand, accept and respect that there are people of other sexual tendencies, but should they be proud to be gay? Should they ride on a parade float and come out in protests? If all of those of us who aren’t gay came out to protest we would halt traffic,” she said in the book, written by Spanish journalist Pilar Urbano.

Just when you think that royalty could not express, or live with any more privilege; heterosexism raises its ugly head. Does it really need to be said why straight people don’t need a parade? Every where you look irregardless of country, heterosexuality is daily affirmed as normal and good; whereas homosexuality is constructed as deviant. The hetero/homo binary is used to justify the ‘othering’ of the GLBTQI community.

She need not concern herself with straight people stopping traffic because daily they engage in acts of violence against GLBTQI individuals to support heterosexuality. To come out, to demand to be counted is a human right. In a world that daily tells you that you are subhuman, it is essential to have daily expressions of self-pride to fight against the negative onslaught.

If only her royal highness had stopped her sexual commentary there. But some people cannot help but to wallow in privilege.

“If those people want to live together, dress up like bride and groom and marry, they could have a right to do so, or not, depending on the law of their country, but they should not call this matrimony, because it isn’t,” she is quoted as saying. “There are many possible names: social contract, social union”.

Isn’t it nice that gay marriage is just role playing; no different than children playing dress up. Of course it could not be “real marriage” because two people of the same sex are involved, and we all know that real love only occurs between heterosexual people.

The whole separate but equal when it comes to gay marriage is discriminatory. If we have to call it a social union, or a social contract that necessarily implies that there is a difference. Not calling it marriage implies that somehow these relationships are not as legitimate and not as filled with love. Language is a powerful tool as it explains how we understand and order our world, and therefore when we decide that only certain groups of people should be covered under certain labels we are affirming a social hierarchy.

I believe that Queen Sophia should relegate herself to discussing diamonds and crowns because her social commentary is not only homophobic it specifically denies love, which is the most beautiful of human emotions. Had she been able to see beyond her heterosexual privilege for one moment she would have realized that love does not threaten to destroy, if anything love is our only salvation in a world that seems bent on reducing our common humanity.